The Harold Song
by Iffy Jr
Summary: Harry/Draco. Post-major character death. "Harry just doesn't know what to do anymore. Draco had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back." Song-themed. COMPLETE.


Author's Notes_:_ First off, yes, the title is a song by Ke$ha. If you don't like the song, then don't read it. But I suggest you do. I don't want to sound dumb saying I like my own fic, but I really do, as sad as it is :P Btdubs, this is all about character death. They don't die in the fic, but it refers to when they died in the past. So if you're looking for something cute and fluffy you've come to the wrong place. Sorry, loves! Also, sorry about any grammatical/spelling errors. I'm really bad at that stuff :P

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><p><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: All of the characters that you recognize (there should only be a couple that you don't) belong to the beautiful JK Rowling, my Queen. They are not mine, and I'm glad they're not. As amazing as it would be to own them, that means I would have had to write all of the Harry Potter books, and it was so much more fun just reading them 3  
>Also, I mentioned Ke$ha earlier. The story follows the lyrics of her song The "Harold Song". It's my favorite by her, and it just inspired me to write this fic :)<br>Also I mention the Rolling Stones in here. Obviously they're not mine either, but just throwin' it out there now.

**Summary**: Harry/Draco. Post-death. "Harry just didn't know what to do anymore. Draco had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back." Song-themed. COMPLETE.

**Pairing**: Harry/Draco  
><strong>Status<strong>: Complete  
><strong>Rating<strong>: Mature  
><strong>Warning<strong>: refers to m/m pairing and previous smut and character death; language

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><p><em>I miss your soft lips...<em>

He used to kiss you every night before you fell asleep. Every morning once you had woken up. Before every meal. After ever meal. Before he left for work, because he had to go an hour before you did. After you got back from work, because you didn't get back until he had been at home for two hours making dinner. He would always make dinner; never order it in. There were those rare times that you would go out to eat, for a birthday or an anniversary, but he didn't like being out in the open. There were too many things in each of your pasts that kept you from feeling completely comfortably around groups of people.

Not unless it was around Christmas time. He made the most beautiful ice sculptures. He would kiss you to warm you up after hours of making snow angels and having snowball fights in the cold weather. He would make your face out of ice, and then _you_ would kiss _him_ when he was finished because it was so perfect, right down to the glasses and the lightning bolt shaped scar on its forehead. He had tried to color the eyes, once, but they ended up looking more the shade of grass than the emerald green of your eyes, so he turned it back to white. And then he kissed you again, and your scarves would get tangled around the others.

You still liked to wear red and he still liked to wear green, even though you were nearly five years out of Hogwarts. But you didn't think of them as Hogwarts colors this time of year; you thought of them as Christmas colors. Christmas was his favorite time of the year. You liked snow, too, but your favorite Holiday was his birthday. His parents were still alive (Narcissa out of her rehabilitation hospital and Lucius out of Azkaban), and they would invite the both of you over to the Manor for a birthday party fit for a king. You didn't like your birthday, though, because nearly every magical being in the world would send you a letter. You answered all of them the first time, and the second time you only answered the ones from the children, and the third time you only answered the ones from the people you knew...but the fourth time—the most recent time—you had burned every last one of them. They always said the exact same thing and you didn't like it. But you would count how many letters you had gotten, first, because that's how many times he would kiss you that day. It was a funny way to torture you, he said, and as much as you made it look like you hated that he wouldn't just kiss you all day, you liked it because you thought it was cute.

But he would always stay up till midnight so that he could still kiss you goodnight.

He would always kiss you. Would. He didn't anymore. He couldn't, even if he wanted to.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

That was the problem with being dead. You could only have a ghost when you were _un_happy, and he had been very happy. And he had refused a portrait of himself. It made him shudder to see himself asking him how is own day had gone.

He would always kiss you. But he couldn't anymore.

* * *

><p><em>I miss your white sheets...<em>

You shared a house with him. It had one story, and you had laughed at him because he picked it out himself. He was used to all the finer things in life, and then he went off and chose a house with one story, one kitchen, one bedroom, one sitting room, and two bathrooms. The Manor had at least five stories, three kitchens, twenty bedrooms, eight sitting rooms, and ten bathrooms. _Just because I was raised on the finer things doesn't mean I liked them_, he had told you. You had laughed at him anyway.

You shared the bedroom, of course, and he had chosen the decorations for it. You didn't really care except for the fact that everything was in shades of greens and blues—no reds. He finally splurged and let you get a red pillow covering, even thought he said it clashed with all the blue and green. But he was okay with him after you had kissed him in thanks...after you had done so much more than kiss him.

But even with your red pillowcase, the rest of the bed had been white. The sheets and the blankets and his own pillowcase had all been white, and whenever Ron or Gregory came over they made fun of it. _It looks like you're straight and you share the bed with some girl on a constant period instead of Draco_, Ron had said, and Gregory had added that maybe it was Draco in the first place. All of them had laughed, even Draco, who hated it when anybody laughed at his expense.

You and him did a lot in that bed; did a lot on top of those white sheets. You had had to wash them a lot, but you didn't mind. What else were sheets for other than that they kept the mattress clean so you could actually wash them? They were there to get dirty, so that's just what he and you would do. You would get the sheets dirty.

But you didn't anymore. You couldn't, because you had left that house the same week that he left. You had different sheets now. But you didn't get those dirty, either. You never had anybody over to dirty them.

He and you would always get his white sheets dirty. Would. You didn't anymore. You couldn't, even if you wanted to.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

He and you would always get his white sheets dirty. But you couldn't anymore.

* * *

><p><em>I miss the scratch of you unshaved face on my cheek...<em>

He hardly ever grew hair anywhere. There was maybe a prickling layer over his chest in the winter, but it would be gone by the end of February. There was always a prickling over on his face, though. It never got past prickling, so he never had to shave it. He would, though, on some occasions. He would for special events for other people, like weddings and baby showers, but he would leave it there for the occasions he shared with you. Because he knew you liked it. He knew that you liked to let it scratch your fingers and your face and your thighs, so he kept it unless something socially important came up.

You knew he didn't like it very much, so you told him that he didn't have to go unshaved all the time. But he just waved you off and told you that he wanted to keep it because you liked it. You had told him that you'd rather he be comfortable with his face than wear a blonde shadow on it just for you. But he had always just wrapped his arms around you and rubbed his cheeks against your neck, and you would stop protesting after that. For the day, at least. You would usually bring it up again in about a week.

Now you wish that you could bring it up every week. You wish. But you can't anymore. You couldn't, even if you wanted to. Not if you wanted him to answer, anyway. You could talk to the air and pretend it was the same... But you couldn't do that. It would hurt too much.

He would rub his cheek against yours because he knew you liked it. Would. He didn't anymore. He couldn't, even if he wanted to.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

You wish he would rub his cheek against your neck again, and then drag it up your cheek until his lips found yours. But he couldn't anymore.

* * *

><p><em>And this is so hard<br>'Cause I didn't see  
>That you were the love of my life and it kills me…<em>

You had never told him you loved him. Even after six years of being in school with him and having that secret crush on him, and then the six more years after that... You never had to. He had come to you first, two months after you had killed Voldemort, and said outright that he was gay and that he wanted to date you and was there any way that you liked boys too and was there any way you could forgive him for all of the horrible things he had done to you since you were both eleven and that if you still hated him he would quick get off of the front stoop of your house. (You had lived in the house Sirius gave you at that time.) You hadn't even said anything. You had, quick has lightning, just like your scar, grabbed lightly to the sides of his face and pressed your lips to his, pouring seven years of emotion into the kiss. He had wrapped his arms tightly around your waist and kissed you back like there was nothing else in the world that mattered to him, and in that moment you knew that nothing else mattered to _you_.

You had never told him after that, either, because you never saw a reason to. You had grown up without anybody ever saying it to you, and you knew that he had grown up the same, so you had never thought that maybe he wanted to hear it. You never really cared if you heard it or not, so you just thought that he felt the same way.

But you did love him. You had loved him since your fifth year, the moment you saw the look on his face the first time you saw each other after your adventure in the Department of Mysteries. He was angry with you, but he was broken, too, and you wanted to hold him...but instead you had tried to decide how you should hex him. You would have done it, too, if Snape hadn't shown up. You're glad he did. You didn't really want to do it. Maybe to Gregory and Vincent (_at the time_, because now you were good friends with Gregory, and Vince had died during the legendary Battle of Hogwarts, so you never knew him at all), but you didn't want to hurt Draco anymore than you knew you already had.

You really did love him—you still love him. You do. You couldn't tell him anymore, though. Not even if you wanted to.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

You wanted to tell him that you loved him—you would suffer Sirius's death all over again if it only meant that you could. But you couldn't anymore; you couldn't ever.

* * *

><p><em>I see your face in<br>Strangers on the street..._

Nobody in the world looked like him other than his father, yet you mistook ever last person you saw _but_ Lucius for him. At first you had only seen him in other boys with short, blonde hair. But then you would give them a second look and see that their eyes were blue and that their noses were pointed up like a ski slope, and that their cheekbones were pushed straight out. And that was nothing like he had looked. His eyes were grey—no, they were silver—and his nose had been smooth and straight and his cheekbones had been high and his face had been thin. That was the first three months.

But in the fourth month, you started seeing him in girls, too. Males and females alike, with short, blonde hair. And then you would look closer and see that it was a teenage girl, or that the man had brown eyes and a pale mustache Draco couldn't have grown to save his life. That was the first eight months.

But in the ninth month you started to give double takes to brunettes. To anybody with grey eyes or pale skin.

In the tenth month you stared down old ladies with hair as black as yours and eye's the color of mud. Sometimes it took you an entire minute to remember that he's gone and that you're probably making somebody very uncomfortable. Just because you're the Boy Who Lived Way Too Many Times and Wishes He Would Just Die Already doesn't mean they liked to be stared at by you.

In the eleventh month you hugged random people with hair the color of the Weasley clan, asking them where they had been and why hadn't they said they hadn't really gone and how the hell could they put you through that much pain. Then you would realize that they weren't hugging you back and that this was just another guy with a full fledged, flaming orange beard and a hat in a color Draco wouldn't be caught dead in.

And you knew what he'd be caught dead in. You had picked out the clothes he was buried in. You had put him into the outfit he wore whenever you had gone ice-skating: semi-tight, dark blue jeans he always charmed to keep the heat in, an evergreen green thermal t-shirt underneath a cotton, navy blue long sleeve shirt, a thin sweatshirt the color of Slytherin green—the color of your eyes—underneath a faded brown peat coat that went down to the middle of his thighs with two big pockets, four buttons, and a hood he never put up. And to top it all off, you had wrapped his neck in the white and green striped scarf that would always get tangled in your red one when you kissed. He had said that it only matched when he had his ice-skates on, but you hadn't been able to put those on him because they were too big for the coffin. Instead you put him in a pair of dark grey slippers he had always worn around the house, and had laid the ice-skates on top of the coffin before they put the dirt over his coffin. His father had bought it; it was made of the same wood as his wand, inlaid with silver and gold. Silver to honor his being a Slytherin and gold to honor his relationship with you. His parents liked you—hell, they probably loved you. Nearly as much as they had loved their son…nearly as much as you had loved their son.

In the thirteenth month you started to see his face on walls and reflections. But when you ran into the wall yelling his name you would only smack painfully into the stone and then have to pretend you didn't see the people around you giving you weird looks and you had to pretend that you hadn't done it at all. And when you saw him in panes of glass—his figure that was at least two inches taller than you, and his platinum, silvery blonde hair, and his grey eyes, and his thin fingers that reached out to hold you, and his legs that were bent to leap up and wrap themselves around your waist in an embrace that would always nearly knock you off your feet (but he never did knock you over, because even though he was taller than you he was always light, and you had broader shoulders and had always been stronger)—and you turned around to quick catch him but there was never anybody there, or whoever was behind you wasn't him at all and was just an innocent bystander admiring the snow globe or the mini-palm tree on the other side of that window.

In the sixteenth month you started to hallucinate him in the third dimension. But it was never long enough to have a conversation with him. It was only long enough to share a smile or for you to launch at him for a hug before he would dissolve into mist and disappear.

In the seventeenth month your hallucinations got worse. You could talk to him, now. But you knew he wasn't real by then. There were a lot of things you did when you saw him then. You would tell him that you loved him over and over again until he smiled and said that he loved you too, and then disappear. You would ask him how your parents were doing, and how Sirius and Dumbledore and Mad-Eye Moody and Fred and Dobby and Lupin and Tonks and Snape and Ted were doing. He would never have an answer for you, but you would ask him anyway. You would tell him that his parents were doing fine. You would tell him that you missed him; that you wanted to die so you could be with him. He told you not to do that. He told you that you were Harry Potter, and a Gryffindor, and you were brave and you could get through this and that you couldn't give up because if you gave up then the rest of the world would give up too.

And you would scream at him for leaving you behind; for passing his muggle driving test three years before and then driving the car his mother had bought him drunk. You would scream at him for dying in such a pointless way; he hadn't even died saving somebody like you had. He hadn't even died slipping on the ice he loved so much. He hadn't even died by drowning or freezing in the lake you would ice-skate with him on. He hadn't died doing anything that he loved. He had died in a giant metal beast after drinking a drink he didn't even like by running into another person he had never even met. You haven't drunk a single drop of anything stronger than dark hot chocolate since you knew his cause of death.

And now, twenty-three months and eight days after his accident, you've had four different counselors who have given you seven different types of pills to help you with depression and had you join two different grief groups each that all said the exact same thing and just made you puke so they said you could stop going. You still have your fourth counselor. Professor McGonagall. She apparates from outside of Hogwarts once every week to have a meeting in your sitting room. She's your favorite because she's the only one that knew the story behind you and Draco; she's the only one not in it just for the money. But you can only drink water now, because everything else reminds you of him or makes you sick. You only eat in public, and that's just lunch, so you're hungry a lot, but you don't care enough to get up from the floor or the couch and pull an apple or a banana or a cup of moldy yogurt out of the fridge. You spend most of your life in the shower—so long the water goes cold, but you still stay in for a few more hours—drawing things in the fog that forms on the glass door. You scratch your arms so often you start to bleed, because it's the only way that the hallucinations will go away. They're the worse they can be, finally. You can touch each other, now. But he nearly never lets you touch him, and when he does it's only for a second before he mists away and leaves you in shambles all over again.

You try to avoid being in public at all anymore. Every last face—from the children at the first year of Hogwarts to greenish colored trolls to two hundred year old goblins working at Gringotts—you mistake to be him. You run at more walls than healthy, and you've even broken windows by smashing them with your fists so his reflection will go away. You tell passerby's there was a bee.

He used to jump up and wrap his legs around your waist and his arms around his neck to kiss you, even in the middle of a crowded street. Used to. He didn't anymore. He couldn't, even if he wanted to.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

He would always really be there when you saw him. But he couldn't be there anymore.

* * *

><p><em>I still say your name when I'm talkin' in my sleep...<em>

You had and still have nightmares about him. Sometimes you scream so loud the woman in the condo beside you has to bang on the door to wake you up and yell at you to shut up. The man next door is nice, though. His name is Leonard, but you call him Lenny. He knows who you are, because he's a wizard, too. Not many people know where you live, but those who do you're as close to friends as you can be with. Lenny apparates into your room and wakes you up by saying your name and shaking you. He doesn't yell and he doesn't tell you to shut up.

You cry into his chest and he strokes your hair and tells you that everything's going to be okay and that you'll get through this and that it's not the end of the world quite yet so you can still be strong like you've always been.

You tell Lenny that you _wish_ it was the end of the world and that you don't want to be strong anymore and that you never even wanted to be. You tell him that it's just too hard for you anymore.

But he just shakes his head the entire time that you speak and tells you to stop being a little girl. You want to hate him when he says that, but instead you laugh because it's true. Suicide was never an option. Not for the Boy Who Lived So Many Times That Everybody Loved Him.

And after you laughed you would ask Lenny what you had been screaming this time. You said Draco's name a lot, he would always say, and sometimes he would say that you had screamed your mother's name or Dumbledore's name or even Snape's. And sometimes you screamed names of people who were alive, Ron and Hermione and Gregory and even his name. You blush whenever he says that he heard his own name. You're sure he's gay, too, but you don't want to know for sure because then something may be possible between the two of you, and you're not ready for anything between anybody else. And after a few more quiet things Lenny would hand you a towel to wipe away your sweat and tears and then he would kiss your temple and tell you to go back to sleep and that he would be back if he heard you screaming again. He was always there in the night, no matter what. No matter if he had to get up in an hour or if he would only have two hours to sleep and he went to you instead. You wish you could love him, maybe, because you'd be good for each other. But you can't.

You only love Draco. And you dream about him every night. They're usually nightmares, but sometimes he would come in and you would relive a memory about dirtying his white sheets (and you would wake up crying) or ice-skating in your House scarves (and you would wake up crying) or making snow angels and building snowmen (and you would wake up crying). Or sometimes you would make something completely new up. You would be sitting on a bench beside him when the leaves were falling down on you in red and orange and yellow and brown and only a little bit of green. And you would tell him you loved him and he would tell you that he loved you back and then you would kiss and then you would make a pile of dead leaves and dive into it and hope there weren't any slugs crawling around inside of the pile. And you would wake up crying, screaming his name and everything about him that you knew. Sometimes you only dreamt in shades of grey and silver and green because those were the colors of his eyes and the color of the House that he was from. Those were your favorite ones, because they were always the happiest ones. But you would still wake up crying.

When he was still there with you, you nearly never had nightmares. You dreamt about him all the time, but they were always good dreams. But when you did have a nightmare and you woke up screaming into a pillow he would be awake right away, rubbing his hands over your back and your shoulders and your arms until all of the tension was gone. And then he would kiss your forehead and wrap you in his arms and you would go back to sleep.

He had more nightmares than you, though. People said that you had been through more than anybody else, but that's not true. He had been through just as much as you had, just in a different way. He had grown up with a Death Eater for a father, and other Death Eaters had always surrounded him. And at fourteen, Voldemort had moved into his house. And at sixteen he had been forced to become a Death Eater himself, and he had seen way more people die than you ever had, even now. So he would wake up screaming all of the time, and you would pull him into your arms and ghost your hands across his back because you knew that being tickled soothed him more than anything else. Not tickled so that he laughed, but so that you're fingers were soft and it would push all of the shivers and screams out of him and then you would kiss his neck and his lips and his temple and pull him on top of you to go back to sleep.

He would always be there when you said his name in your sleep. Would. He wasn't anymore. He couldn't, even if he wanted to.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

He would always be there to wake you up when you had a nightmare, when you said his name in your sleep. But he couldn't be there anymore.

* * *

><p><em>And in the limelight<br>I play it all fine  
>But I can't handle it when I turn off my nightlight…<em>

Other than running into walls and breaking windows, you were really quite good at pretending that everything was okay. In your opinion, at least. You still laughed at peoples jokes—_really_ laughed—and you still smiled at people and told them to have a good rest of the morning or afternoon or evening. And when people told you the same thing you would tell them you'd do your best, because you would, wouldn't you? Sometimes you would. Sometimes, though, you just wanted to go home and cry. So you had lied to them. But that's okay. Lying is okay sometimes. That's always what you've believed. As long as it saves other people's feelings then it was okay, and as long as you didn't have to spend an hour explaining that you couldn't try that night because you were still too broken then it was okay.

Sometimes people still asked to interview you for the Daily Prophet or for a wizard radio station or for a wizard television show (a lot of muggle things had become popular after you defeated Voldemort; "The Boy Who Lived was raised as a muggle, so they must know something that we don't!" they had said). Rita Skeeter was still around, and as surprising as it was she had become one of your dear friends. She used to make you want to wring her neck, but now she didn't even mention her Quick Quills to you. When you asked her why she was all of the sudden writing everything truthful about you she just batted her eyelashes and said she had always written the truth about you. You screamed like a banshee at her after she said that, and she had laughed, and then she had told you that you didn't know her at all. You had asked her what she meant by that and she said she hadn't always been an old coot just after the money; she had been in love, too. And you had respect for her from then on and she had even seen the inside of your apartment when you invited her over for tea while she asked you a few questions. When she asked you if she could ask something about Draco you shook your head and she quick changed the subject.

Now the interviewer you hated the most was a stout little Irishman named Filly Prince. You called him the little baby horse king, which didn't help your relationship. He had Quick Quills that told lie after lie. You had been infuriated at the beginning, but then you just started to ignore him whenever he spoke to you and he couldn't write anything anymore. "Potter says nothing at all!" and "The Boy Who Lived is speechless again!" never made very good headlines. But he still made you hate him. He asked you how your love life was going after Draco's death the most, and one time you had stopped and punched him square in the face. You had broken his nose, blacked his eye, bruised his cheek, and knocked out three teeth all in that single punch. The headlines were more interesting the next day. "Harry Potter punched me in the face!" You had even laughed at it. Really laughed, sitting in your apartment with Ron and Gregory and Lenny. Hermione didn't come over very often because she had the best paying job out of her and Ron (they got married a year out of Hogwarts) and she worked a lot. And Ginny only came over once to tell you that you were horrible for getting together with Draco and not her and how could you lead her on like that in sixth year and that one kiss in the summer before seventh year. You had kicked her out right away and forbid her to ever come back, and she had listened to you. She didn't come back now, either. She knew you would punch her, too, no matter that she was a girl.

Mostly, when people were interviewing you and they said something about Draco you would just tell them that you didn't have anything to say on the matter. Sometimes they would press you, and you would keep refusing. And sometimes they tried so hard that you got up and walked off in the middle of the live interview. You didn't care that you looked like a fool and made them look like a fool, too. You didn't care at all.

You were fine for the most part when you were in public places. But when you got back to your apartment you usually fell apart the moment you walked in the door. You would kick your shoes across the room and pull off your shirt and rip your socks off, and then you would walk around the house in just your pants with tears streaming down your face and your nails digging down your arms over and over again until you couldn't breathe and you couldn't think and there was blood all over everywhere. You would collapse onto the couch and just sleep fitfully there, and sometimes you would wake up to Lenny shushing you softly and using his wand magic to fix your arms and to clean up the blood that had dripped around the house. But sometimes you woke up alone, so you know you hadn't screamed anything at all.

Your hallucinations were the worst when you were at home alone. Sometimes even your strongest pills didn't get them to go away. Sometimes you forgot that Minerva was coming over that evening so you would wake up with her standing over you, giving you both a sad and a reproving look at the bottle of pills open and spilling onto the floor beside you and the scratches on your arms and the blood on your walls from staggering around the house and grasping everything with your blood soaked hands.

And you would blush and apologize and she wouldn't forgive you because she said you should know better and you can't say anything because you do know better and you wished you could just die already.

You used to always love coming home so you could see him. Used to. You hate it now because he's never actually there. He couldn't be, even if he wanted to be.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

He would always be there to greet you. But he couldn't be anymore.

* * *

><p><em>(Ohhhhhh, ohhhhh, ohhhhh)<br>But I can't handle it when I turn off my nightlight.  
>(Ohhhhhh, ohhhhh, ohhhhh)<em>

* * *

><p><em>They say that true love hurts<br>Well this could almost kill me.  
>Young love murder<br>That is what this must be…_

He told you about his parents when they first dated. Lucius loved Narcissa more than the world, and he made it known. But she didn't love him as much as he loved her. Not at first. And she told him that, because she was a Slytherin and they only lead Gryffindor's and Hufflepuff's on. But Lucius didn't care; he dated her anyway, doing everything that he could to get her to truly love him back. He told you that she broke his heart over and over again, breaking it off with him all of the time and telling him that she was sorry but they just weren't going to work. He told you that Lucius—great, dignified, Slytherin Head Boy Lucius—used to cry himself to sleep on the days that she would break up with him. He had his own room as Head Boy so nobody else knew about it. The first time he kept chasing her until she got back with him. The second time he talked to her in passing until she did. The third time he only watched her from afar until she came to him and apologized and again dated him. The fourth time he had to start leaving during classes to run to his room and scream into his pillow and cry out her name until she came back go him again. The fifth time he became numb and refused her apology. But this time she kept going after him, and after a week he gave in. They never broke up again, and she loved him as much as he loved her.

He told you that because they were always making fun of each other for it and you were completely out of the loop. You never thought that you'd really be able to relate to Lucius, but once Draco had left you didn't know how you _couldn't_ relate to him. Everything slowly got worse and worse. Lucius even talked to you about it. He told you that if you ever needed to talk you could just show up and cry in front of one of their fireplaces.

You never did go over there. You barely talked to his parents at all anymore. They were concerned at first, because you had always been on good terms with them after the war, but you just owled them back and said that it was hard for you. They had understood right away and left you alone. Except on your birthdays. They threw the most extravagant parties for you on your birthday, only inviting the people on the list you gave them every year. This year it had been Ron and Hermione, Neville and Luna, Dean and Lavender, George and Angelina, Gregory and Pansy, and the people who had come without a "date" were Seamus, Lenny, Rita, and Minerva. Seamus would have come with Ginny, but you refused to have her invited. It had been a small party compared to the ones they had thrown for Draco, but you had been able to love it and laugh during it all the same. They even set aside a specific time for you to burn all of the mail you got. That was your favorite part.

Love does funny things to you, even if you never say it out loud. Its power is a curious thing. It can make one man sing and one man weep. In your case it's both. Sometimes you find yourself singing with his hallucination, and sometimes when he lets you touch him you just cry onto each other's shoulders. Or sometimes you're just singing all on your own, the only songs you know the ones that Dudley had blared through the house. Things by Hollywood Undead and Nightwish and some chick named Lady Gaga was his favorite out of the most things played. So sometimes Lenny would pop in with a cup of hot chocolate and mini marshmallows while you're singing Born This Way at the top of your lungs, and he would just stand there for a few awkward seconds before handing you the cup and making you eat a banana.

But no matter all of the good things that had come out if—mail burning parties and meeting Lenny and depression highs—you still wished that you could be the Boy Who Finally Died. No matter all of the thanks and praise you got you wished that you had died at the same time as him, before there had been time for you to get the news why you would never see his smile again or feel his lips on yours or see his cheeks turn pink in a blush ever, ever, ever again. No matter all of the laughs you had with Lenny at the lady that lived next door to you or about you spilling your hot chocolate down your pants or about you tripping flat on your face in a mad rush to get to the radio before him so you could pick the station you wished that you could have died before him, but not too far before—just far enough that he wouldn't get the news of your death either. No matter all of the times you broke into hysterical laughter at something like a layer of dust on a vertical window or something completely normal like the quack of a duck because your body just couldn't take any more pain so that it made you laugh out loud and feel absolutely great (even when you were sitting alone at home), you still wish that you could have been in that car with him so that you had both died right away and had at least been completely bashed together and maybe gotten in a few drunken kisses in the process.

Or better yet, you wish that he had never died at all. You wish that he hadn't gone out to the bars to celebrate getting an extra million at the business he worked at, or at least that he had waited until you were off so you could be his designated driver. You wish that you had never asked him to learn how to drive muggle transportation. You wish, you wish, you wish.

You felt like you were already dead anyway, so why not just die away? He had taken half of your heart when he left, and at least one of your lungs because it was always hard for you to breathe, and quite possibly he had even taken your good glasses because it was always hard for you to see, even with a more expensive pair that were meant to make your vision absolutely perfect.

It was the murder of a love; it was the murder of the young. You weren't even middle-aged yet. You wondered why people are the stupidest when they're young, but you know that it's because they haven't learned anything yet. You wish that you could be smarter when you were younger and more dangerous when you were older. That way, when you did something stupid, like drive drunk, you would already so old that you were going to die soon anyway, so you might as well do whatever you want no matter how dangerous it is.

He murdered you, and you're still here. You're not a ghost. You're just stuck here. And you couldn't do anything about it, even if you wanted to.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

You were murdered, and he would have saved you. But he couldn't anymore. He couldn't because he was the one that murdered you.

* * *

><p><em>I would give it all to not be sleeping alone...<em>

He used to sleep with you. Every night he would save you, and just with a simple whisper and a kiss goodnight.

But you didn't sleep in your bed anymore, not ever. You either slept on the floor or on the couch. It hurt to look at any bed at all; you had too many memories of being in bed with him. Going to sleep with a kiss and waking up with a kiss, always buried in those white sheets...

You would give so much to never have to sleep alone again. Even if Lenny moved in with you and slept in the bed with you—not slept with you, but just next to you—you would be able to stand it more. You're not sure why you haven't just gotten rid of the bed already; it just makes you cry whenever you see it anyway. If Lenny would sleep in it you might be able to think of something else. But then again, maybe not. It might just hurt even more because somebody aside from Draco is sharing those sheets with you.

But you would give up so much to have him back in the bed, even if it was never sleeping with you and only sleeping beside you the entire time. You'd be perfectly fine if you never got to dirty the sheets ever again; you just need him here to sleep beside you. As horrible as it is—as horrible as it is—you would give up every single last person you knew to have him back. As wonderful as he's been to you, you would give up Lenny in a second to have Draco back beside you. As great as all your memories with Ron and Hermione have been, you would give them up in a heartbeat—the heartbeat of a man who just sprinted a mile; a heartbeat thudding a mile a millisecond—to have Draco back at your side. You would give up Neville and Luna, and Dean and Lavender, and George and Angelina, and Gregory and Pansy, and Seamus and Rita and Minerva.

You would give up everything not be sleeping alone.

You used to always sleep with him. Used to. You didn't anymore, even if you wanted to.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

He would always sleep with you. But he couldn't anymore.

* * *

><p><em>The life is fading from me<br>While you watch my heart bleed..._

But it wasn't always sunshine and butterflies between you, and that's not even counting when you were both still kids at Hogwarts that didn't know anything.

You broke up twice.

The first time you were only together a week, and you both kept bringing up evil things that you had done to each other. And you just kept getting angrier and angrier with each other, until finally you told him to get out and to never come back because how the hell could this work between _you_ of all people anyway. He was gone for two days, and all you did was cry.

But then, in the middle of the night, there was a knock on the door, and when you opened it Draco was standing there with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. He told you that he got you lilacs and irises because they were your favorite, and you didn't say anything about him leaving. You just thanked him and then invited him in to help you pick out a vase. And you were back together without anything about apologies; you didn't even mention what happened those two days ago.

The second time you had been together for twenty-nine days. Draco had moved in with you here, and when you came home from work all of his things were packed up by the door. You called through the house for him just once before he walked out of the kitchen to the front door with a framed picture in his hands. When you asked him what the picture was of he handed it to you silently, and before you got the chance to look at it he said that he had found somebody else. The force of every bit of your being shattering into a million pieces caused your hands to grip tightly down on the glass, and the picture and its frame shattered into millions of pieces. You made it disappear after he left without looking at it. Only later would you find that it was a picture of he and you making shapes in the snow, and you're glad you didn't find out right then because it would have broken you even more.

It was one week and three days later that another knock sounded on your door. You didn't want to answer it, but the knocking didn't stop for a solid twenty minutes. So you opened it to see him, tears streaming down his face. You asked him what was wrong with as little emotion as you could muster, and he told you that he left the "other one" because he couldn't stop thinking about you anyway and that he was sorry and that he had cried for the last four nights in a row and that if you could ever forgive him. And then when you didn't say anything at first and just blinked at him his knees buckled and he hit the ground hard, sobbing and crying and probably waking up all of your neighbors. You kneeled down beside him and asked him if he wanted to help you change the water out in the flowers he had bought you nearly a month ago...the ones that you had kept even though they were long wilted. And then he started to sob happy tears, and he fell into your arms and cried there in your door for about five minutes before you got him to come inside and actually change the water out.

That time you gathered all of your things and moved in with _him_, and you stayed together ever since.

But when you were apart...you were fading, and you were bleeding.

You knew you were nothing without him, because all of those years and branded you both together. All of that hatred as children and the subtle times you saved each other's lives. As much as you disliked each other you didn't want the other dead. Dobby tried saving your life all of those times in second year because he told the little elf to do so; you know because he told you later. He told Dobby to make sure Harry Potter doesn't die or he'll have lost his favorite person to push the buttons of. He was secretly glad when you got Dobby set free, because Dobby nearly got you killed all of the times he was trying to save you anyway. In sixth year, you were afraid that he was a Death Eater because that meant that he was no longer just somebody who hurt you and who you liked to hurt back, but an evil person who needed to be killed like all the rest. But then you learned that he was forced too, and all was better again. Both of you had tried everything, even muggle means, to get his Dark Mark removed, but it refused to leave his skin. He died with it as bright as it would be when Voldemort was back...like the Dark Lord was finally claiming another of his followers.

You faded to a mass of tears without him. You still do. And now you bleed, everyday, because the scratching is the only way you feel clean anymore. You still feel like he's on you, so you scratch and peel and scratch until you think he's gone. But he's never gone. He's always with you, like the ghost you're still not.

He would stop you from fading, from bleeding. Would. He couldn't anymore, like he would when you were sad. He couldn't, even if he wanted to.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

He would always save you. But he couldn't anymore.

* * *

><p><em>Young love murder<br>That is what this must be.  
>I would give it all to not be sleeping alone.<em>

* * *

><p><em>Remember the time<br>We jumped the fence when  
>The Stones were playin' and we were too broke to get in.<br>You held my hand and  
>It made me cry while<br>I swore to God it was the best night of my life..._

There was this muggle band called the Rolling Stones. It was your favorite band, and he hated it, but he always did whatever he could to get the both of you tickets when they came into the area. He knew you loved them, so he put up with them to make you happy. You did your best not to listen to them when he was around, but sometimes he would put them on for you himself, and you just couldn't argue with his face.

One time, they had a concert right in your very city. It was a muggle concert, of course, so the security was lax compared to the stuff you were used to in your seventh year when trying to break into the Ministry—and if you could get by them then a measly muggle concert would be like ripping tissue paper.

He got the tickets—or at least, he told you he did. But he misplaced them. You said it was fine and that it wasn't the end of the world that you missed one concert. And you meant it. But he refused to give up. He turned the house inside out looking for it, and when he still couldn't find them, he said that he was going to break you in. You asked him to repeat that, and he did. You protested, but he refused to listen to those protests. This was what he was going to do for you, if it was the last thing he ever did.

It wasn't, thank Merlin.

There was this fence, and you guys hadn't brought your brooms. He said that he was an idiot not to think of them, and you said it was okay because you should have thought of it too. For a muggle it would have been hard getting past the guards and over the high, barbed fence. But you were wizards, and muggle things are child's play to wizards. Unless it involves rubber ducks, but that's another story.

You were flexible from years of dirtying sheets, and he was twice as flexible from years of training his father put him through. You practically climbed up the fence with just your feet, and you flipped over it nearly as easily as flying a broom. He did it even easier than you did; he did it like a true snake, a true crafty Slytherin.

It being an outdoor concert meant that you only had to cast a simple, minute long confundus charm on the crowd, and you pushed your way to the front of the crowd like you did every time. Nobody even noticed.

Afterwards you kissed him on the walk to the nearest place to eat, because you hadn't eaten before the concert. It was midnight now, but there was still some fast food places open, and even a little diner. On the walk you had your hand was held tightly in his, and your head on his shoulder. And not a single muggle gave you a funny look. Every one of them just smiled politely at you and asked if you had enjoyed the concert, and even _he_ had said he liked it—_really liked it_.

You sat on the same side of the booth at the diner you showed up at, and he never let go of your hand, not even to eat. Granted, he was holding _your_ right hand, so _you_ were the one most affected, but you wouldn't have let go of his hand for anything.

And afterwards he apparated you to a random hillside, and you laid down on the grass and watched the stars and the thin layer of clouds. You even fell asleep there.

But he woke you up, and when you asked why he did he told you it was because you were crying in your sleep.

And you remembered the dream you had been having. It wasn't a nightmares; it was a good dream. It was almost an exact replay of the night, and you were crying because you were happy.

So you kissed him, and told him that not even Merlin could have made a better night, and that he was the best thing that ever happened to you. So he smiled and apparated you back home, right into the bed, and you definitely did not go back to sleep.

He would always take you to the Stones when they were around. Would. He didn't anymore. He couldn't, even if he wanted to.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

He would always take you. But he couldn't anymore.

* * *

><p><em>Or when you took me<br>Across the world, we  
>Promised that this would last forever but now I see<br>It was my past life  
>A beautiful time<br>Drunk off of nothin' but each other till the sunrise..._

And then there was your first anniversary of being together. You hadn't ever been married, but it was the same thing to you. You wore rings anyway, so why did you need a minister? There just wasn't a point in your eyes, and you knew he felt the same way about it.

For your present, you told him that you were going to bring him to Australia, and you were going to find and capture and ride a kangaroo, because why the hell not?

He had laughed loudly at that, and when he was done he said that that was funny, because he was planning on bringing you to the Amazon jungle to catch a jaguar, because why the hell not.

So you went a lot of other places, too. India for the cows and the elephants, Africa for the lions and the giraffes, China for the pandas and the tigers, British Columbia for the bears, and America for nearly everything else. Wolves and deer's and mountain lions and goats and pigs and just _everything_.

You wanted it to last forever, and he said that you should live in the middle of the Australian plain, because riding kangaroos had given him more bruises than he could count and had nearly broke his arm and it was one of the most fun things he had ever done in his life. But then work called you back, and you couldn't do anything about it. You had to go home, because your vacation was over. You still had friends, and he still had friends, and he still had parents, and you still had duties.

It was fun while it lasted—hell, it was almost more fun than the night he took you to the Stones—but it had had to end.

You took a muggle plane home, because you wanted one more memorable thing. Both of you fell asleep on the way there, and when the lady flight attendant woke you up you had your head on his shoulder, and his head was leaning against your head. Your hands were tightly knit and your thighs were pressed against each other thanks to the armrest between you being pushed up. You were in the coach seats; as rich as you were as wizards, muggle money was a whole different story. That you had had to earn all on your own instead of inheriting it from your parents. Both of you.

But the most important thing was that it was the sunset right outside of your window. You had had a redeye flight, and it was just barely morning when you got home. He and you spent five extra minutes to watch it come over the ocean beside the airport. It was red and pink and orange and yellow and purple and even blue and white. It was every color a sunset could be, all at the same time.

You had the rest of the day to yourselves before you had to go back to work, so you spent the entire day drinking from a bottle of some expensive wizard wine you bought in India. You had no idea so many wizards were in elsewhere places in the world. You sort of just assumed they were all in England. But you realized how foolish you were. Saying wizards are only in England is like saying Asian's are only in China. Honestly, it's just rude.

The thing was, he had an entirely separate bottle. You can't remember the last time you got so drunk. You probably had drunk sheet dirtying "parties" ten times that day, and both of you had woken up with the worst hangover you had ever had in your lives.

Thank Merlin for sobering spells and headache banishing charms.

He would take you everywhere, and you would always watch the sunset. Would. He couldn't anymore, even if he wanted to.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

He would always prove his unspoken love for you. But he couldn't anymore.

* * *

><p><em>(Ohhhhhh, ohhhhh, ohhhhh)<br>Drunk off of nothin' but each other till the sunrise.  
>(Ohhhhhh, ohhhhh, ohhhhh)<em>

_They say that true love hurts  
>Well this could almost kill me.<br>Young love murder  
>That is what this must be.<br>I would give it all to not be sleeping alone._

_The life is fading from me  
>While you watch my heart bleed.<br>Young love murder  
>That is what this must be.<br>I would give it all to not be sleeping alone._

_It was my past life...  
>A beautiful time...<br>Drunk off of nothin' but each other till the sunrise...!_

_They say that true love hurts  
>Well this could almost kill me.<br>Young love murder  
>That is what this must be.<br>I would give it all to not be sleeping alone._

* * *

><p><em>The life is fading from me<br>While you watch my heart bleed.  
>Young love murder<br>That is what this must be.  
>I would give it all to not be sleeping alone.<em>

He would always kiss you. Would. He didn't anymore. He couldn't, even if he wanted to.

He and you would always get his white sheets dirty. Would. You didn't anymore. You couldn't, even if you wanted to.

He would rub his cheek against yours because he knew you liked it. Would. He didn't anymore. He couldn't, even if he wanted to.

You really did love him—you still love him. You do. You couldn't tell him anymore, ever. Not even if you wanted to.

He used to jump up and wrap his legs around your waist and his arms around his neck to kiss you, even in the middle of a crowded street. Used to. He didn't anymore.

He would always be there when you said his name in your sleep. Would. He wasn't anymore. He couldn't, even if he wanted to.

You used to always love coming home so you could see him. Used to. You hate it now because he's never actually there. He couldn't be, even if he wanted to be.

He murdered you, and you're still here. You're not a ghost. You're just stuck here. And you couldn't do anything about it, even if you wanted to.

You used to always sleep with him. Used to. You didn't anymore, even if you wanted to.

He would stop you from fading, from bleeding. Would. He couldn't anymore, like he would when you were sad. He couldn't, even if he wanted to.

He would always take you to the Stones when they were around. Would. He didn't anymore. He couldn't, even if he wanted to.

He would take you everywhere, and you would always watch the sunset. Would. He couldn't anymore, even if he wanted to.

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.  
>He. Gone. Two years. Never. Coming. Back.<p>

That was the problem with being dead. You could only have a ghost when you were _un_happy, and he had been very happy.

Didn't. Couldn't. Wouldn't. Used to.  
>Did. Can't. Would. Past.<p>

He had been gone for two years, and he was never coming back.

_Young love murder  
>That is what this must be.<em>

_**fin**_


End file.
